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High-Capacity Assault Weapons Topic

However, bans on guns are like bans on drugs or even alcohol. All it does is create a black market which will be a boon to some who are determined to get the item anyway. So the criminals or those who want to do evil will find a way to get the guns and all you're doing is preventing those without evil intent from easily possessing them as well.

So yeah, assault rifles are bad but any ban on guns beyond that is only going to create ill will with gun supporters and won't keep them out of the hands of those doing bad anyway.

"We should ban these guns with 30 round clips" someone says. They will show you a picture of an AK-47 knock off.

Then you see the law and hunters shotguns with 6 shells in them are banned. Handguns are being banned. You have to lock up your guns and cannot carry them.

Dont believe the rational talk. This isnt about guns, it is about control.

It is about guns. And it is about control. It can be both.

There has to be a reasonable middle ground.

To imply that because exactly where that line should be drawn is going to be fuzzy and controversial, that we shouldn't do anything at all, is just plain stupid.

I'm sure you're familiar with the saying that goes something along the lines of "those who don't learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them". That applies here.

The mistake of the past that we can learn from is the Eighteenth Amendment, i.e. the "Prohibition" amendment. A very good book that I read within the past year was "Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition" by Daniel Okrent. This book was also the basis of the three part PBS documentary on Prohibition by Ken Burns.

One thing that you learn from the Prohibition era was that during the 13 or so years that it was in effect, alcohol production was unregulated and uncontrolled. Demand was still there, so moonshining and bootlegging proliferated. A line from the Ken Burns documentary stood out to me . . . Prohibition became a "training camp" for organized crime. And one of the big ironies of it all is that after the passage of the Twenty First Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth and ended prohibition, there was actually less alcohol available and consumed than there was during the thirteen years of the Prohibition era.

The lesson to be learned is that you don't solve a perceived problem by instituting a complete ban on something that is seen as the problem, but by regulation and controls. A complete ban just drives the problem underground where there is no regulation, no oversight, no trackability. If there is demand, then you have to accommodate that demand. But it can be done in a reasonable and controlled way.

The same can be said for gun control. A total ban on all guns would be foolish. As well as unconstitutional. There are a lot of regulations and controls in place today. But they may not be enough. You can't throttle all the way down to zero, but revisiting exactly what is allowed today for legal purchase and ownership should be on the table for discussion.

Silentpadna mentioned the Second Amendment. When talking about gun control, some people run and hide behind the Second Amendment as an inalienable, funamental and far-reaching right.

I, too, support the Second Amendment. The founding fathers of our country crafted and included the Second Amendmant for a reason, and I think that reason needs to be respected. But first, we need to understand the reason why it's there . . . what was their real intention? To the best of my knowledge, without doing any deep research, single-shot ball and powder muskets were the high-tech weaponry that was all the rage when the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written and adopted. Something like HCAW would have been unimaginable to the founding fathers 225+ years ago. How would they have regarded weapons like these when they wrote the Second Amendment? Is this the kind of weaponry that they intended for the citizenry to "keep and bear arms"? Would the Second Amendment have been worded differently if HCAW could have been comceivable and anticipated?

The FF also codified slavery as part of the Constitution. Should that be respected? Again, all I want to hear from the Swamps of the world is that 20 dead 6-7 y/o is the price we have to pay for the right to own high capacity weapons.

Silentpadna mentioned the Second Amendment. When talking about gun control, some people run and hide behind the Second Amendment as an inalienable, funamental and far-reaching right.

I, too, support the Second Amendment. The founding fathers of our country crafted and included the Second Amendmant for a reason, and I think that reason needs to be respected. But first, we need to understand the reason why it's there . . . what was their real intention? To the best of my knowledge, without doing any deep research, single-shot ball and powder muskets were the high-tech weaponry that was all the rage when the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written and adopted. Something like HCAW would have been unimaginable to the founding fathers 225+ years ago. How would they have regarded weapons like these when they wrote the Second Amendment? Is this the kind of weaponry that they intended for the citizenry to "keep and bear arms"? Would the Second Amendment have been worded differently if HCAW could have been comceivable and anticipated?

The FF also codified slavery as part of the Constitution. Should that be respected? Again, all I want to hear from the Swamps of the world is that 20 dead 6-7 y/o is the price we have to pay for the right to own high capacity weapons.

I don't consider myself a "swamp of the world" but I've laid out a couple of scenarios where one can take out a lot of people without a HCAW.

So what I'm asking is "If your intent is to prevent mass killings, where is the line drawn on gun ownership?" I'd like the seamars of the world to tell me where that line will be.

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/17/2012 8:37:00 AM (view original):This interests me in a personal way. I live in a subdivision but there is a protected wetland butted up against my backyard. Lots of wildlife back there. Seems that wild boar have entered the mix. For those who are unfamiliar with them, they're nasty creatures built like a tank. They'll run unless they feel cornered or surprised. Then they'll attack. Can easily kill a dog. I have three and I happen to walk them in the area behind my house twice a day.

I have some guns but I do not have a handgun that will stop a wild boar. As I do live in a neighborhood, I can't strap a high-powered rifle to my back. So I've been researching handguns. Those that know don't seem to think there is a handgun powerful enough to stop a boar with a single shot. So, in my mind, I need something powerful enough to pierce boar skin and has multiple shot capability.

I have no designs on shooting people but I've just laid out a scenario where I need a firearm capable of killing a lot of people in a short time frame. Should this gun be banned?

I don't mean to sound insensitive about your dogs, but I'd rather read about a wild boar mauling a dog than I would about a room full of massacred teachers and first-graders.

And to your previous point about handguns and a pocket full of clips . . . there's still a noticible difference in speed and capacity. Granted, if somebody is intent on going to any public place and go on a shooting spree, they're going to do it. But if we're talking about getting off dozens of shots in "x" about of time as opposed to hundreds of shots in "x" amount of time, I'll take the fewer shots and potentially fewer casualties.

BTW, a dog stands a better chance against a wild boar than a 7 y/o child. I would assume a cornered boar would not differentiate between the two. I also assume you would not be interested in a wild boar mauling your son while you stood by helplessly wishing you had a gun capable of stopping said boar.

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/17/2012 9:54:00 AM (view original):So I assume you're suggesting that only single shot guns should be available to the public. Correct?

I'm not suggesting anything about exactly where the line should be drawn. I don't have the answers. I'm just suggesting that it seems reasonable that it should be drawn somewhere other than where it is today.

Posted by MikeT23 on 12/17/2012 9:56:00 AM (view original):BTW, a dog stands a better chance against a wild boar than a 7 y/o child. I would assume a cornered boar would not differentiate between the two. I also assume you would not be interested in a wild boar mauling your son while you stood by helplessly wishing you had a gun capable of stopping said boar.

I like to think that I wouldn't be taking my children to a place where there exists a reasonable possibility of being mauled by any wild animal.

A quick check indicates that wild boar have been seen in CT. As have bears and mountain lions. You don't get to decide where they go so I guess your children are officially forbidden to go outside.

I'd like to think you wouldn't be taking your children to a place where there exists a reasonable possibility of being killed by a crazy individual. Unfortunately, you don't get to decide where they go either.

Some simple and resonable gun laws might get through if someone was not just going to use it as a reason to ban as many guns as possible. Read what Seamar talks about...Do you really want that?

Reforming the American mental health care system is a good idea. Unfortunately, that would open up another huge can of worms.

As it stands now, it's extremely difficult to remove a mentally unstable person from the freedom of society unless and until they show definite signs of being a physical threat to either themselves or other people. Unfortunately, quite often, as we've seen what seems to be increasingly over the past couple of years, they don't cross that line until innocent lives are taken in situations suck as what we've seen in Newtown, or Virginia Tech, or Columbine.